Chapters 43 & 44 in the serialisation of the book 'Insurrection' 4th book in the 'Corpalism' series

43

Believe you can and you're halfway there.
Theodore Roosevelt


Mackie sipped his tea, strong and dark, just how he liked it, and bit into a large slice of Angel cake whilst Alb, Gerry and Mags looked down the inventory list he had made. Gerry whistled, Alb beamed and Mags ticked it off mentally against their wish list.

"It’s all there," she said, a trace of wonderment in her tone.

"Bloody amazing," said Alb. His respect for the man had increased leaps and bounds, sufficient that he forgave him for sitting in his favourite armchair
Mackie leaned back in his chair, a spasm crossing his face, quickly disguised but not quickly enough to escape Mags’ keen eye. "Good to go then?" he asked.

"Good to go," said Mags.

"If you’ll excuse us, we're going to tell the others that everything's on track," said Alb as he and Gerry exited.

"You do that," said Mags to their backs. She picked up her cup and sat opposite Mackie, "What's next for you, Mackie?"

"The game’s nearly up, Margo,” he said, his voice warm with affection, “so I thought I'd wait to clock out on a beach somewhere, with the waves rolling in and gulls chattering above my head."

They both knew he might have left it too late; he’d lost weight since the day he’d brought Bob to them and his face had an unhealthy pallor.

“You’ll be missed, Mackie,” was all she said.

∞

Alb stood at the front of the dining hall; he’d dressed up for the occasion.

Arrayed before him were the whole group, all bar Mags, who was still ensconced with Mackie. This was to be his Churchill moment.

He cleared his throat and stood as straight as he could. "Not since 1066 have these great shores of ours been invaded, many have tried but all have failed. The Spanish failed when they sent an armada to terrorise and pillage this land, the French under old Boney failed when we beat them at Trafalgar and Waterloo and then the Hun under the Kaiser and the Nazis under Hitler, they all failed because we in these islands are made of special stuff and it's been passed down to us through the ages."

Gerry found himself choking back the tears of pride.

Alb's chest swelled as he continued, taking heart from the bright enlivened faces, "But in the last three decades we have been betrayed," his mood darkened, and he saw his feelings fed back to him in the faces of his friends, "the British people have not abandoned our posts nor have we let the enemy in but our leaders have seen fit to lower the draw bridge and allow so many foreigners into this great land of ours that we are now called a multi-cultural society."

He spat this last sentence. "A multicultural society?" he repeated, "Since when and who asked us?"

Wilf led the cheers, ably supported by most of the men. Dora and Vera clapped excitedly. Esmé raised clenched fists, almost bursting with pride.

Alb leant forward, "When our ancestors fought to defend this land they were lead by true British heroes, Henry V, Good Queen Bess, Pitt the Younger, Lord Nelson and the Iron Duke. Men like Kitchener and Churchill. Who will lead us now when we suffer invasion by immigration? Who will lead us in our struggle to retain our birth right? Hegemony of our own lands."

"You will, Alb!" said Gerry pointing at him.

The others clapped and joined in the clamour.

"No! No!" said Alb, seriously put out, “Not me, I'm not a leader. My role is to be there with you, when we set the ball rolling, when we make those in power sit up and take notice of the people, of what the people want, of what we feel about this invasion."

"Invasion!" agreed Gerry, proud that he had thought up the term, "Invasion by Immigration."

"We are old," said Alb, his back a constant reminder, aching with the effort of retaining an erect posture, "and the political elites think that we are too old to have a say in matters, too old to care what happens to this wonderful country of ours, but they are wrong, they are very wrong!"

More clapping and cheering, several of those gathered struggled to their feet.

"We will show them we're not too old," said Alb, raising his fist in the air, "we will show them that we care, we will show them that we know how to act and we will show them Britons who are willing to fight and die in defence of their homeland!"
 


44

Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like
burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.
E. O. Wilson

The Preacher stood motionless in the centre of the stage.

He stood there for such a long time that people started to look quizzically from one to the other.

Then he spoke, "The concept I bring you today will be the hardest for you to understand," he paused, "however, I can wait no longer; for some reason, I feel my time is drawing to a close."

Barry was appalled. Had he let something slip? Had the Preacher followed him? No, it couldn't be that, he'd been so careful. Was the Preacher ill?

"Humankind is like a biological computer, designed to perform the function of survival." He paused momentarily, "We are omnivores and it seems logical, although callous, to see the herbivores as being placed here to provide a source of food."

He stopped and made a flattening gesture with this hands, "I respect that some of you will have made a life-style choice to be vegetarians and you deplore what I've just said. But that brings me to my next point, that mankind has become self-aware and as such, we ask...where did we come from? Why are we here? We're constantly trying to find answers, so that we no longer feel alone in the universe."

He stopped and looked out at the audience; they looked confused. Barry was concerned by the nature of his talk; still wondering if he was ill.

The Preacher raised his arms sideways, to shoulder height, "Mankind feels alone. Ergo, if of a religious bent, he or she will seek a God and a religion to follow. If he or she is more scientific then that person will seek scientific answers to their questions and look to the stars in the hope of communicating extra-terrestrially. All of this is to avoid concluding that we are alone."

The audience was muttering now, Barry heard words like 'aliens' and 'little green men'. He was worried they might not sit through to the end. The Preacher had never yet lost an audience.

"Yet, on this earth, we're surrounded by life forms we are in the process of exterminating. Now, isn't that a fascinating contradiction? We inherited a planet teaming with life and we are eradicating it in our self-aggrandising superiority. Yet, all life is here on this planet, this is our world and if we are ever to find another life form that we can communicate with, that we can eventually share our thoughts and questions with, it will be here, on this planet."

He paused and looked around the audience, "What chance do we have of ever achieving that?" he said, "I ask you, what chance? We can barely live with our own kind, barely live with our own relations, with ourselves even."

He started pacing round the stage, "Most people don't like themselves, whether from birth or the result of a negligent upbringing, I don't know. We seek answers outside of ourselves, take refuge in the bottle, in nicotine, in food, in drugs or in meaningless sex. Even those born rich, who have everything fall into their laps, even they suffer self-doubt and are ultimately alone. We flounder in the morass of self-doubt, the fear of being alone, the fear of being ostracised because of our real or imagined shortcomings."

He stopped abruptly. Some in the audience were fidgeting uncomfortably. Others seemed too surprised to move. Barry continued to wonder where the hell this was all leading.

"The truth is we're trapped inside our own minds. This is where we process and judge everything and everyone around us, based on our own understanding, our own experiences, fears and worries, our own wants and emotional needs, our own misconceptions. This is where we harbour secret, selfish desires to be the most important person in the world, worshipped and adored."

He walked to the centre of the stage and addressed them all, arms held wide.

"If that is so, what are we?" he asked, "Are we even real? We could be a piece of biological programming in a test tube somewhere where some other species is pumping thoughts and emotions through our central nervous system directly to our brains. We could be part of some experiment somewhere."

Then he gave a short, sharp laugh, saying, "We could be an experiment commissioned by the mice. Who knows? Is the answer really going to be 42?"

He paced, "But one thing we do know, we are all locked away in our own tiny cells," he pointed to his head, "everything else is merely data input. And if that is truly so, then it's our responses, our reactions to that input that creates the world in which our minds exist."

He stopped, then shouted, "So what kind of fucked up genius created this fucking mess?"

"You did!" shouted someone form the back of the hall.

"EXACTLY!" shouted the Preacher, "And if it's all in my mind, in a test tube, in a computer programme or here on the planet earth with life's glorious multitude, then this world is my own creation and everything in it is the result of my selfish interactions. So it follows, I can change my world."

He paused, allowing his words to sink in, "And if I can change my world, then you can change yours. By treating each other differently, by being kinder to each other, more generous in our dealings with one another, by allowing ourselves to care more for others who have less than us. It is when we hoard and take as much as we can from the pot of life that we encourage others to do the same. When we show contempt and greed we encourage the same in others, and when we show anger and resort to violence we encourage others to do the same. We can change the world and together we can all create a better world for everyone."

Then he was gone.

Cheers

Arun







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